Joe Marler defends Steve Borthwick as mass exit prompts 'Eddie 2.0' jibes

As a new season fast approaches in the northern hemisphere, England head coach Steve Borthwick finds himself picking up the pieces of a catastrophic summer off the field.

A promising series in New Zealand, albeit with two defeats to the All Blacks, preceded a mass exodus at Twickenham, as Borthwick’s coaching staff began to jump ship in August.

First, long-serving strength and conditioning coach Tom Tombleson left his role, and was quickly followed by head of S&C Aled Walters, who has joined the Ireland set-up. Just days later, defence coach Felix Jones delivered the coup de grace by handing in his resignation, citing an “unstable environment” as the reason for his decision.

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Such a change to his staff has led to comparisons between Borthwick and his predecessor Eddie Jones, whose backroom staff seemingly changed on a match-by-match basis towards the end of his seven-year tenure.

But Joe Marler, a player who played under both Borthwick and Jones, has refuted those comparisons, saying the environments created are “worlds apart”.

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Joining Dan Cole and Ben Youngs, two players that also played under both coaches, on the For the Love of Rugby podcast recently, the 95-cap England international admitted that it is “disappointing” to see so many coaches leave, but was quick to defend his head coach.

“It’s definitely disappointing,” the loosehead prop said.

“First of all TT—he’s been there for years. He started back in 2014, 2015 for that World Cup, was it? Great bloke, great S&C coach, did a lot with mainly the backs. I love him to bits, and there’s obviously a change there. Aled’s leaving, he’s got the Ireland gig, hasn’t he? And I think his wife’s Irish, based in Ireland, logistics and all that side of things.

“And then the Felix one sort of came out of the blue a little bit, which is gutting because he’s really good. Like, he’s a very, very good defence coach—well, coach in general. The defence had been going well for us, it really started to pay dividends from that.

“But they’ve made their choices, haven’t they? They’ve all got individual reasons why they want to move on or do something different, and you have to respect that. I don’t think it’s a fair reflection that the narrative being pushed is ‘Steve’s and Eddie 2.0,’ and the environment is being repeated, because the environment is worlds apart from what Eddie’s became towards that second half of his cycle, which was dark at times.

“I know you’ve got a lot of respect for the Big Beav, I also have a lot of respect for the Big Beav, but there were some parts of his environment that I questioned. I questioned to him, questioned around him, that are nothing like what Steve has created now. So, for the coaches leaving, I don’t know—you’ll have to get them on your podcast!”